Very few reputations are gained by unsullied virtue.
By all men bond to Nothing, Being slaves without a lord, By one blind idiot world obeyed, Too blind to be abhorred.
It is a quaint comment on the notion that the English are practical and the French merely visionary, that we were rebels in arts while they were rebels in arms.
All true friendliness begins with fire and food and drink and the recognition of rain or frost.
The real trouble with this world of ours is not that it is an unreasonable one. The trouble is that it is nearly reasonable, but not quite.
Youth is always too serious, and just now it is too serious about frivolity.
We cannot fling ourselves into the blank future; we can only call up images from the past. This being so, the important principle follows, that how many images we have largely depends on how much past we have.
It is human to err; and the only final and deadly error, among all our errors, is denying that we have ever erred.
The English are no nearer than they were a hundred years ago to knowing what Jefferson really meant when he said that God had created all men equal.
One pleasure attached to growing older is that many things seem to be growing younger; growing fresher and more lively than we once supposed them to be.
All good men are international. Nearly all bad men are cosmopolitan. If we are to be international we must be national.
There are no new lies, no new heresies. Man is simply not that creative.
One must somehow find a way of loving the world without trusting it; somehow one must love the world without being worldly.
The only people who seem to have nothing to do with the education of the children are the parents.
If our caricaturists do not hate their enemies, it is not because they are too big to hate them, but because their enemies are not big enough to hate.
Ivory may not be so white as snow, but the whole Arctic continent does not make ivory black.
I still believe in liberalism today as much as I ever did, but, oh, there was a happy time when I believed in liberals...
The poor complain that they are governed badly. The rich complain that they are governed at all.
It is the chief value of legend to mix up the centuries while preserving the sentiment.
Circumstances break men’s bones; it has never been shown that they break men’s optimism.